03/15/2011

Your best friend calls you and tells you he/she's really sick? How do you show you care?

Part Six of "Enigmatic Code" --Endnotes:

1. J. G. Randall and David Donald. The Civil War and Reconstruction. Revised Second Edition. Boston: D.C. Heath and Company, 1961, P. 33
2. James Oakes. The Ruling Race: The History of American Slaveholders. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1982, p. 138.
3. Frederick Dalcho. [By a South Carolinian] Practical Considerations Founded on the Scripture Relative to the Slave Population in South Carolina. Charleston: A.R. Miller, 1823, p. 30
4.At the most it was mixed inchoately with traditional faiths which were the real underlying belief system: “It is clear that elements of Islam were often mixed with or adapted to forms of traditional African belief.” (Alan J. Raboteau. Slave Religion: The “Invisible Institution” in the Antebellum South. Oxford University Press, 2004, p. 5. ) Further, to the extent that some Islamic religious elements were present we should see those as having a “syncretic” relationship with the “slave religions,” a well-understood phenomenon throughout religious history. In such syncretic systems the presence of the more well- known elements does not change the more profound underlying and distinct belief system, in this case the persistence of traditional African belief. (See Juan Sosa. Sectas, Cultos, y Sincretismo. (Collecion Felix Varela) N/p: Ediciones Universal, 1999.)
5. Let me anticipate an objection here, and thus perhaps address one of J. G. Randall’s proverbial “wiseheads” who might want to smother this simple insight in a welter of conditions. The potential objection might be that perhaps in Southern culture, with its penchant for knighthood imagery generally, Dalcho’s identification of the bondmen’s religion with Islam, could itself be seen as related to a conception of Scottish Rite initiates as new- fangled knights in an old-time Templar crusade. Beyond being too clever by half, and missing any real insight into the environment’s conflicts, there is a simpler objection. First, this would be reading nefarious later Southern phenomena into the already sufficiently complicated period that we are considering with plenty of its own contingent historical problems. Second, and more conclusively, the fact that the Templars themselves were often accused of being crypto-Moslems themselves pulls the rug out from under that idea. The charge was not historically true, but still was well -known to history and often widely believed, as conspiratorial beliefs are wont to be for a long time. This hardly would make the Templars great candidates as durable symbol for a new anti-Islam, or anti-black crusade. As Malcolm Barber, in his standard treatment of the subject tells us: The charge was that they had been “infiltrated by Islam” or “corrupted by Islam”. (Malcolm Barber. The Trial of the Templars. Second Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993, p. 209, then p. 216.) If anything they are perhaps symbolic of a certain level of freedom-of-belief within the limited confines of medieval belief -structure. And this is precisely how the Scottish Rite has made use of them as a symbol.
6. As evidence of this see the many cited sources in: Larry Tise. Proslavery: A History of the Defense of Slavery in America, 1701-1840. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1987.
7. Larry Tise. Proslavery: A History of the Defense of Slavery in America, 1701-1840. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1987, p. 149.
8. James Oakes, p. 136.
9. Erskine Clarke. Wrestlin’ Jacob: A Portrait of Religion in the Old South. Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1979, p. 88.
10. Erskine Clarke, p. xii
11.Erskine Clarke, p. 162.
12. Erskine Clarke, p. 162.
13.Erskine Clarke, p. 162
14. Erskine Clarke, p. 161
15. Erskine Clarke. All the chapters of Clarke’s book, which treat Charleston, make this point very convincingly and evocatively, and create a striking picture of the religious particularity of the place.
16. Erskine Clarke, p. 103.
17. Erskine Clarke, p. 162.
18. Erskine Clarke, xiv.
19.St. Michael’s Parish Records, 1751-1983. (320.00). South Carolina Historical Society. I would like to thank the very knowledgeable Archivist of the South Carolina Historical Society, Mary Jo Fairchild, for receiving me cordially into the Historical Society’s beautiful library, and engaging with me in an enlightening discussion on the St. Michael’s parish records held in the collection. After speaking with her as Archivist it was my confident assessment that the general concept of dual-worshipping tendency in Charleston generally is strongly supported for St. Michael’s particularly by the documentary evidence of the Society’s collection.
20. Louis P. Nelson. The Beauty of Holiness: Anglicanism and Architecture in Colonial South Carolina. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2008, p. 326.
21. Louis P. Nelson, p. 324.
22. Louis P. Nelson, p. 179.
23. Louis P. Nelson, p. 179.
24. Larry Koger. Black Slaveowners: Free Black Slave Masters in South Carolina, 1790-1860. N/p: The University of South Carolina Press, 1985, p. 7
25. Larry Koger, p. 7.
26. Erskine Clarke, p. 98.
27. In the interest of creating a balanced picture of a difficult environment one should also note Erskine Clarke’s observation contrasting plantation punishments to those in Charleston: “In Charleston there was an efficiency and impersonality possible in an urban setting. Owners could send their slaves to the workhouse to be whipped out-of-sight and out-of –hearing [unlike on the plantation], and, to heighten the degradation the slaves would have to carry the instructions for their whipping along with twenty-five cents to cover the charges.” Thus, as we attempt to develop a theory on the paradoxical mindset and intuitions of those for whom one part of their lives was the defense of slavery, the contradictions of which may have been real and sharp, let us do so with full cognizance of the brutal and, for the bondsmen, vastly more contradictory environment.
28. Arturo de Hoyos. “The Union of 1867” Heredom Scottish Rite Research Society Volume 4, 1995, p. 7.
29.Manisha Sinha. The Counter-Revolution of Slavery: Class, Politics and Ideology in Antebellum South Carolina. Ph. D. Dissertation. Columbia University, 1994, p. xxv. I think it is interesting and perhaps significant that when this dissertation was published several years later this summation seems to have been edited out, even though it is still supported by the excellent breadth of the argument Sinha pursues. If I may hazard a guess, I think it speaks to the almost fantastical sense of contradiction present in South Carolina at this period, which almost sounds ridiculous or farcical when state baldly. But I am appreciative that in the unpublished dissertation Sinha did state it baldly, because it supports broadly the sense underlying the argument I am making. But by Sinha’s reading of the local culture, I doubt if the sense of some real conflicted ideals emerging authentically, even if paradoxically, would jibe the argument pursued by this scholar.
30. Even in the most anti-Southern treatments of the period, for instance Genovese, the fact that people held contradictory views even when they professed religious or other justifications is not considered intrinsically problematic from the scholarly point of view and certainly not unrealistic. Thus I see absolutely nothing problematic in developing this theory substantially on that basis, as I believe it comports with even the most Southern-critical sources. So we may at once agree with Genovese’s basic point that these contradictions, however they might be construed, were ultimately to find their rationale in at least partially in a form of rather self-serving paternalism. But this does not negate that the phenomena created were not real. To give a more practical and well-known example, the architecture of Charleston continues to be thought beautiful, though it may be seen partially only as a phenomenon of paternalism. It is surely a mistake to negate all phenomena that in some way are related to this paternalism. Such negation would itself be merely propagandistic.
31. I have formulated much of my argument generally in relation to the analysis and masterful synthesis in David Goldfield. Still Fighting the Civil War: the American South and Southern History. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2002.
32.David Goldfield, p. 22
33. David Goldfield, p. 51.
34.David Goldfield, p. 53
35. Randall and Donald, p.43. The quotations are from Frank Owsley
36. Randall and Donald, p. 41
37. James Oakes, p.8
38. James Oakes, p. 16.
39. James Oakes, p. 41.
40. James Oakes, 105.
41. James Oakes. Interview on The Tavis Smiley Show. April 6, 2007. PBS Website.
42. William Fox, The Lodge of the Double Headed Eagle, Little Rock: University of Arkansas Press, 1997. p. 29.
43. James Oakes, p. 197.
44. See James Oakes, Chapter 7.
45. I am basing my argument on James Oakes’ very complex and nuanced description of the paternalist ethos, which he respectfully contrasts with those of Genovese. But I have extended Oakes views here in terms of how these paternalists would have felt about their particular locus, Charleston.
46. William Francis Guess. South Carolina: Annals of Pride and Protest. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1957, p. 16.
47. Elizabeth Stone Senning. The Abolition of Slavery in the District of Columbia. Unpublished Dissertation. University of Chicago, 1909. , pp. 65-68. Senning is discussing the period from 1801 to Emancipation with her observation on the “experiment station.” (Thanks to the Washingtoniana Division of the Martin Luther King Library, D.C.).
48. See Erskine Clarke.
49. Robert N. Rosen. Confederate Charleston: An Illustrated History of the City and People During the Civil War. N/p: University of South Carolina, 1994, p. 23. Rosen is describing the whole era before the war here. The quote is from George C. Rogers, Jr.
50. It is important to make a fine level of distinction here. We are talking about an elite class of southern patricians in the era before the real ramp-up to the war.
51. We are so used to thinking of the South and Southerners as secessionist, or proto-secessionist, that we badly misunderstand the nature of the most educated class in the South. These paternalists, as Oakes astutely makes clear, were amongst the most educated in whole country, and surely had amongst the most comprehensive personal libraries. So when they were critical of the rest of the country it was not from the archetypal position of Southern put-uponess, but from the condescending position of those with more erudition and (supposed) foresight. It is the simplest deduction then that the center of their activities, Charleston, would have been considered the de facto intellectual Capital. Indeed Charleston had very active and heavily- patronized booksellers compared to many urban place in the country: (Hennig Cohen in his The South Carolina Gazette, 1732-1775. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1957, uses newspaper excerpts to show just how tremendously active the book trade was in Charleston (Chapter, XI) at an earlier period. A similarly useful analysis is lacking for a later period, but since Charleston only became richer and more filled with the educated class we can safely assume that the tendency only increased. “…the degree of appreciation of both contemporary and classical literature was very high indeed…A number of clergymen, public officials and doctors owned notable...libraries,” p. 121) Therefore, what is crucial to grasp is that if they thought of Charleston as the de facto Capital it was for these vaunted intellectual reasons and tendencies , and certainly not for any proto-Confederate tendencies!
52.Larry Tise. Proslavery: A History of the Defense of Slavery in America, 1701-1840. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1987, p. 58. (N.B. Dalcho’s publication date of 1823).
53. Frederick Dalcho. “A Sermon” in A Collection of Addresses by South Carolina Masons 1800-1900. Columbia: Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons, 1977, p. 5.
54.Jack P. Greene. “’Slavery of Independence’: Some Reflections on the Relationship Among Liberty, Black Bondage, and Equality in Revolutionary South Carolina.” South Carolina Historical Magazine. Charleston: The South Carolina Historical Association. Volume 80, Number 3 (July 1979), p.202.
55. Jack Greene, p. 201.
56. Larry Tise, p. 60.
57. The Denmark Vesey conspiracy was a thwarted massive slave rebellion in 1822, led by the charismatic figure of the same name. It caused great fears in Charleston and around the South generally.
58. Larry Tise, p. 62.
59. Roger D. Abrahams. Singing the Master: The Emergence of African American Culture in the Plantations South. New York: Pantheon Books, 1992, Pp.38-39.
60. William E. Wiethoff. A Peculiar Humanism: the Judicial Advocacy of Slavery in the High Courts of the Old South, 1820-1850. Athens: the University of Georgia Press, 1996, excerpting from pp.14-18.
61. In other words, if the point was not to actually enjoy a vigorous debate, it can only have been to learn lawyerly- type skills of rhetoric in the high- classical manner.
62. Michael O’Brien. Conjectures of Order Set: Intellectual Life and the American South, 1820-1860. Volume Two. N/p: University of North Carolina Press, 2003, p. 424
63.James Oakes. Slavery and Freedom. New York: W.W. Norton, p. 64.
64. Louis P. Nelson, p. 172.
65. Roger D. Abrahams, p. 39.
66. See De Hoyos.
67.Larry Tise. Proslavery: A History of the Defense of Slavery in America, 1701-1840. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1987, , pp. 209-211. Tise specifically focuses on the works of Dwight and Morse as exemplary of this trend.
68. Larry Tise, p. 212.
69. James Oakes, p. 207. I do not mean this in any way as a defense or excuse of Dalcho on this point. However, a hermeneutical, perhaps even deconstructionist analysis surely is more revelatory than simple condemnation.
70.Robert N. Rose, p. 23.
71. Larry Tise, p. 271.
72.See De Hoyos, p. 21.
73. See Barry A. Rickman. “Frederick Dalcho, A Man of Accomplishment, A Man of Peace.” In Transactions of the South Carolina Masonic Research Society, 1990.
74. Barry A. Rickman, p. 12.
75. I think we may be justified in speculating further that Dalcho’s departure came from a fear that the controversy over rituals would draw unwanted attention to the radical nature of the Scottish Rite per se, and thus be threatening to his reputation if revealed . It is perhaps also not a coincidence that the same year that he left the Craft because of this controversy, 1823, is also the year that he penned his proslavery tract. This tract may have been a conscious or unconscious attempt to inoculate himself and his reputation against any taint of “Illuminati” radicality should such have seen the light of day.
76. Of the many examples one could adduce, I would bring one close to my heart, Shostakovich in Stalinist Russia. In addition to all his great music, which expresses a deep distance from the oppressive regime, there is also a great quantity of sheer propaganda efforts on his part for movies especially.
77.Ralph E. Weber. “Joel R. Poinsett’s Secret Mexican Dispatch Twenty” the South Carolina Historical Magazine. The South Carolina Historical Society. Vole 75, No. 2, (April, 1974) , p. 70.
78..Ralph E. Weber, p. 73.
79. Ralph Edward Weber. United States Diplomatic Codes and Ciphers, 1775-1938. , p. 203.
80. Ralph Edward Weber, United States Diplomatic Codes, p. 212, note 26.
81. Ralph E. Weber. “Joel Poinsett’s…” p. 70.
82.Lester D. Langley. The American in the Age of Revolution, 1750-1850. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996, p. 242.
83. George Anthony Hruneni, Jr. Palmetto Yankee: The Public Life of Joel Robert Poinsett, 1824-1851. Unpublished Ph. D. Dissertation. University of California, Santa Barbara, June, 1972, p. 146. Hruneni actually devotes most of a substantial chapter to discussing the Masonic aspect of Poinsett’s involvement, which makes his conclusive statement all the more convincing, to my mind.
84.G.E. Maningault. A Biographical Sketch of the Hon. Joel R. Poinsett of South Carolina. Charleston: W.G. Brown, 1851. p.389.
85. Fred Rippy. Joel Poinsett, Versatile American. Durham: Duke University press, 1935, p. 65.
86. Fred Rippy, p. 218.
87. July 30, 1825: “From Isaac Auld, Edisto Island, near Charleston, South Carolina. Requests that a letter be forwarded to Joel R. Poinsett, asking him to send exotic or valuable seeds…. Auld was a Charleston physician and one of the founders of the Supreme Council, mother Council of the World, Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry.” The Papers of Henry Clay. Volume Four. Secretary of State. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1972, p. 563.
88. William Fox, 1972, p. 27.
89. Frederick Dalcho. An Historical Account of the Protestant Episcopal Church in South Carolina. Charleston: E. Thayer, 1820, p. 417,